Tag: US politics

I realised a strange thing this week. Through the power of the internet I saw a Nazi go from blustering about his power to weeping in fear that police might shoot him. The comment section was full of people holding him up as an example of the fundamental weakness of Nazis as a group. Something about it seemed familiar. A also saw a young man who marched with Nazis and thinks that multiculturalism is cancer but swears he isn’t a Nazi complaining about getting death threats over the internet. Something about that seemed familiar too.

I realised that they were experiencing what it’s like to belong to a minority. They’ve been saying for years that white men are the ones who are really oppressed and now they get to find out what that’s actually like. You see when a woman fails she fails on behalf of all women. When a person of colour breaks the law the reaction is disproportionately harsh. When any member of a minority sticks their head above the metaphorical parapet someone will try to shoot it off. One needs privilege to survive mediocrity and incompetence.

I have no illusions that it will last. Either things are going to get very dark or the Natzis will climb back into their holes for a while and people will forget that there are still Natzis in the world. Very soon it will again be possible for white people to espouse the beliefs that sent millions to the gas chambers and plunged the world into war and other white people will pretend that they don’t really mean it.

But for a while perhaps thost of us who really do face discrimination and oppression are allowed a little schadenfreude at the idea of Natzis finding out what it’s like. They really don’t seem to have the constitution for it.

Well suck it up, buttercup. This is what life is like for everyone who isn’t an able-bodied, cis-gendered, heterosexual white man. This is what the rest of us put up with while you’re whining on the internet about how women oppress you by refusing your advances or sleeping with men you don’t approve of. While you’re blaming immigrants for depressed wages and affirmative action for keeping you out of your ‘rightful’ job the rest of us have been working twice as hard for half as much and being told that we should be grateful for it.

Has anyone spotted the Zeppelins yet? I ask because it’s clear that the USA is experiencing a full on incursion from a Nazi timeline. That’s the only way I can explain actual Nazi’s marching in the streets with neither hoods nor masks and then being surprised when this doesn’t go well for them.

It’s almost possible to feel sorry for these travelers from another realm trapped in a world that doesn’t work the way they thought it did. They stumble around, expecting their violence to go unpunished, expecting to be lauded for their crimes, smearing their victims with insults that the world regards as nonsensical and when all else fails pretending not to be Nazis

Almost.

Because let us not forget that these are Nazis. These are people who believe that some people aren’t people and that makes it totally ok to exterminate them. Even in their homeline they are arsholes without a single redeaming feature. They’re just used to getting away with it.

So what do we, the right thinking descendants of people who fought a war to put these arseholes back in their box, do about this?

We fight. We fight the very idea that it’s ok to be a Nazi. We enforce consequences. We remove the possibility of wearing a swastika all weekend and then pretending not to be a reprehensible piece of shit all week. When someone gets all uppity that no-one is condemning leftist violence let us pause briefly to point out all the times when people did condemn it before asking them if they have a problem condeming actual fucking Nazis. We show up to protest. We make it clear where the line is drawn and which side of it we are on.

Those of us who benefit from white privilege should weaponise that privilege. If someone has to tear down monuments then let it be those of us who will be charged with a misdemeanor not shot by some cop with a twitchy trigger finger. Let those of us who look like the imaginary Ayran master-race be the first to strike down the very idea of white supremacy.

One last thing before I let you go. While it is absolutely morally correct to punch a Nazi (but only if they really are a Nazi) it is illegal unless they attack you first. If you punch a Nazi you could be arrested, charged and convicted. So maybe don’t do it if you have people relying on you or if you can’t afford the conviction on your record.

+++PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP CALLED NEW HAMPSHIRE A “DRUG-INFESTED DEN” DURING PHONE CALL WITH MEXICAN PRESIDENT, JANUARY+++

+++TRUMP SAID,”I WON NEW HAMPSHIRE BECAUSE NEW HAMPSHIRE IS A DRUG-INFESTED DEN” AND “KIDS ARE BECOMING ADDICTED TO DRUGS BECAUSE THE DRUGS ARE BEING SOLD FOR LESS MONEY THAN CANDY,”+++HE CITES MEXICO AS THE SOURCE FOR THE SUPER CHEAP DRUGS+++

+++NEW HAMPSHIRE RESIDENTS OBJECT TO THE PRESIDENT’S CHARACTERISATION OF THEIR STATE AND POINT OUT THAT ALTHOUGH HE WON THE REPUBLICAN PRIMARY HE LOST BOTH THE POPULAR AND THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE VOTE IN THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION+++

Ok, that last bit was me joking but the rest of the story appears legit. There is a genuine opiate problem throughout the US and New Hampshire has been particularly badly hit with a tenfold increase in deaths from opiate overdose from 2011 to 2015. I don’t think this increases the chances of Zeppelin sightings since this is clearly a long standing problem however it does suggest a new runner in the apocalypse stakes.

Apocalypse watchers I give you the Drug Apocalypse. This is the apocalypse where an increasing reliance on drugs blinds the lower classes to class iniquity and allows the super rich to hijack democracy leading to an inevitable societal breakdown. It’s the only possible explanation for the drugs being so cheap. If the super rich weren’t subsidising the drugs there’s no way that they could be cheaper than candy.

There’s now a page on the blog collecting all the Zeppelin related material: Zeppelins!

+++ON WEDNESDAY NIGHT PRESIDENT TRUMP INFORMED REPORTERS ON AIR FORCE ONE THAT HIS PROPOSED BORDER WALL NEEDS TO BE SEE-THROUGH, OR AT LEAST HAVE HOLES IN IT, SO AMERICANS DON’T GET CRUSHED BY FALLING BAGS OF DRUGS+++

I’m not buying this story. I think the real reason for the fear of falling drugs is that they’re dropping out of Zeppelins as they transition to our reality. Therefore the current Zeppelin sighting forecast for the US/Mexico border areas is standing at 22%.

It’s an old trope of science fiction that you can always tell if you’ve slipped into an alternative reality because there will be Zeppelins. As I’ve mentioned before I tend to nip outside and do a quick Zeppelin check whenever weird stuff happens. You know, stuff like a reality TV star getting elected president.

Things have been getting so weird recently that I think it’s time to produce a regular Zeppelin forecast. That means I need to collate reports of weirdness. I don’t mean the sort of weirdness I normally look for, like that time a goat was kidnapped from a petting zoo and then returned wearing nail varnish on its hooves. I’m thinking more of the rumours (now denied) that Sinn Fein MPs would be taking up their seats in the Westminster parliament for the first time ever.

I’m asking my readers to send me links to the sort of news stories that make them look to the skies in search of airships. I’m looking for mainstream news stories that are as weird as that time a guy in Florida tried to eat someone’s face but also weirdly mundane like the news that two of the Grenfell Tower victims had been threatened with legal action for campaigning about fire safety. One of the weird trends recently is elected bodies and individuals behaving like pantomime villains. I’m sure that used to be really rare.

So if you, my loyal readers, send me links via Twitter (or Google+ or Facebook if you prefer) I hope to produce a weekly Zeppelin forecast. That way we’ll all know if it’s time to break out the helmets and hide from our new reptilian overlords or whatever else we have to expect when we are all shunted into some strange parallel world.

Sadly I am still not feeling like writing anything constructive or useful. I had planned another commentary on a film or another post full of advice for young writers but I’m on strike.

I am on strike because the world continues to be unfairly messed up.

In the United States politics continues to be a shit show. The ongoing argument about the extent to which the Trump administration is corrupt, incompetent, or in the pocket of Moscow may distract people from the attempts to ninja a terrible new healthcare act through the Senate.

In the UK our Prime Minister risks restarting armed conflict in Northern Ireland in order to hold on to power. She’s trying to do a deal with the DUP – a party with longstanding links to loyalist terror groups; a bunch of climate change denying, creationist, homophobes who hate Catholics. There are just a few massive problems with this.

It risks breaching the Good Friday Agreement.

It’s pissed of Sinn Fein so much that there are rumours the might take up their seats in the Westminster Parliament.

The DUP will resist the hard Brexit demanded by much of the Conservative base because they don’t want to reinstate the border with the Republic of Ireland.

So will Sinn Fein if they do take up their seats.

The only genuinely popular Conservative politician in the UK, and leader of the Scottish Conservatives, is a Lesbian who’s engaged to an Irish Catholic woman.

The British media has spent most of the last five days telling us that a second Scottish independence referendum is dead because the SNP only won a clear majority of the votes, not the overwhelming landslide they won last time. Both the Scottish Conservatives and the Scottish Labour Party are claiming a victory. Even though both of them put together have just over half the seats of the SNP.

Every day the news is full of stuff that makes no sense. I have had enough.

Once again I return to the subject of how messed up everything is right now. For those who’ve missed my previous posts on the subject the title of this one is a joke about how in fiction Zeppelins are often a signifier of alternative reality.

If you’ve studied much history you’ll know that sometimes stuff happened that makes us look back and wonder exactly what Clio (muse of history) was smoking. There was a time when tulips were so sought after that a single bulb could sell for more than a house. There was a time when Britain used opium to pick two fights with China because China wouldn’t sell Britian enough tea and somehow Britain won. There was a time when armed gangs roamed the wild west of the U.S. battling over the remains of ancient monsters . There’s a period of European history (1870 -1914) known as the Great Binge because everyone who could afford it was constantly off their faces with a combination of drugs and alcohol. In 1932 Australia went to war against Emus (actual birds) and lost.

I think that we’re living through one of those periods right now. In the future people are going to look back and wonder if the train of reality somehow jumped its tracks. That’s assuming that there is a future and that the people alive then will have anything to look back on other than a giant crater.

Lets take a look at some of the fun things that have happened in little over a year:

Widespread clown panics that suddenly stopped when a man many deride as a clown was elected to lead the United States of America.

The British Electorate voted to leave the EU and then the British Government tried to aggressively implement that vote without apparently having any sort of map or plan about how to do it.

The Northern Irish Assembly fell apart over a financial scandal, there still isn’t a new Assembly in place, but Northern Ireland voted against leaving the EU so Ireland could be about to reunify? Maybe?

Scotland votes to remain in the EU. The UK Government refuses to let Scotland remain without the rest of the UK. The SNP led Scottish Government votes to hold a referendum on Independence (again). The UK Prime Minister, Theresa May, calls this decision divisive and says that it’s the wrong time and continues to say that right up until she calls a snap General Election that she had repeatedly said the could not and would not call.

In the wake of the election of a reality TV star with zero relevant experience or expertise the US begins a slide into a dystopian failed state. This slide is repeatedly halted by lawyers working for free and judges who’ve somehow become the enemy of the establishment. Scientists steal back their own climate science data before the White House deletes it. The US parks service goes rogue and leads the resistance.

The French presidential election is going to be a runoff between a fascist and the representative of a new political movement who is most famous for having married his former school teacher.

The apparent terrorist attack on a German Soccer team bus turned out to be an attempted financial scam by stock price manipulation.

The government of Chechnya has decided that now is the perfect time for a gay genocide. Presumably they think that Trump will distract everyone.

Marco Rubio, previously not a friend of LGBTQA rights, stands up and denounces the gay genocide. Has he discovered that he actually has both a spine and a conscience or this this just because Ramzan Kadyrov, leader of Chechnya, is Vladimir Putin’s other boyfriend?

Russia has built a replica of the German parliament, the Reichstag, so the army could re-enact storming it. There is nothing at all threatening about the fact that the replica is based on the contemporary Reichstag rather than the way it looked in 1945 when the Red Army actually stormed it.

Kim Jong Un, the world’s favourite cosplay dictator, is so upset by now being the third or fourth craziest world leader that he has tried to pick a fight with the US. Presumably he’s banking on Donald Trump not knowing where North Korea is and launching missiles at North Virginia instead.

In the US the Republican Party narrowly avoids another Government shutdown in the face of opposition from the Republican president and the Republican held Senate and House of Representatives. The Democrats are confused by the Republicans taking the positions as both the party of government and the party of opposition. Democrats may have to start disguising themselves as Republicans in order to more effectively oppose the policies of the President. Or maybe judges. Or Scientists. Or park rangers.

Am I in a coma or something? Is this all a hallucination? The rest of you are seeing this stuff too, right?

To me the mystery of Donald Trump is not how he got to be president. It’s how he ever got to be popular at all.

I just don’t understand the attraction. I know that he’s rich but there are a lot of people who are richer and yet are not all over the television. If he’s charismatic it’s passing me by and while he’s certainty not ugly he’s never been a stunning beauty.

He’s rude. But perhaps I can’t blame people from overlooking that since so many public figures seem to be rude these days. I remember when interrupting people was considered a bad thing but now they’re all at it. He does seem to be a lot ruder than most of the competition though.

He’s dishonest and boastful. His favourite topic of conversation is himself but he seems to be very bad at remembering his own words. I keep thinking about how irritating that would be if a friend or colleague did it. Can you imagine what it would be like to work with someone who would send a group e-mail claiming that Global Warming was a hoax but then denied it when challenged? Can you imagine printing off the e-mail and showing it to him and demanding an explanation? Can you imagine how irritating it would be if he then stormed off, refusing to answer and accusing you of attacking him?

But I find it really confusing that anyone was shocked by the way he talks about women when he thinks no-one is listening. How could you be shocked by him talking that way? That’s just the way he talks about women all the time with an added layer of bad language. If you listen to him any time he talks about women he has real difficulty with the idea that women might be people. Perhaps he feels differently about the women he knows, or the ones he’s related to at least, but even then he talks about them more as objects than as people.

He has a pattern of promising people the world to get what he wants and then delivering virtually nothing and blaming others for his failure. He’s done that in his business dealings over and over again and he’s already started doing it with his Presidential campaign.

I think the thing that worries me the most is that he seems to be a man who has very rarely heard the word “no”. That worries me because that’s a word that builds character. Everyone knows that if you only say “yes” to your children you risk spoiling them. Everyone knows that we need adversity in order to grow. I suspect that presidents hear a lot of “no” and deal with a lot of adversity and I worry that he’s just not used to that.